Reviewers will receive an excerpt from the opening of chapter 37. This is partly because I have sucked mightily at responding to reviews in general, and partly because the last batch of chapters has been particularly cliffhanger heavy and it seems only fair given how long it's taken to get them posted.

Thanks to Ordinvary Vamp, The Old One and Elizabeth440 for all of their feedback, particularly with this chapter-you guys got back to me fast! & thank you to all of you for bothering to read in the first place, whether you review or not.

"Passion does not blind. No. Passion is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever really understand."

A Room with a View

thirty-six

It is only later that she will numbly note the bruises on her arms, proof of how hard Irina had to restrain her from leaving. For her only thoughts are of going there, of getting in her truck and driving as fast as she can, unstopping, until she reaches the shores of the reservation. "No, no, no, no, no…" The word is a torrent, one that she does not realize she is speaking out loud until the binds of Irina's arms register above the desperate, awful news that the darkness Alice had seen once before is now destined to pass.

"Let me go! Edward…I have to go….Please…oh, please, just let me go!" But they will not listen, Tanya's voice a hard order above Alice's murmured predictions and her own desperate cries.

"When, Alice? When will this happen?" Then, to Irina, "Hold her steady. If this is all set to happen in the next hour, there's hardly any reason to let her speed off—likely to get in an accident the moment she gets to the highway."

But Bella is senseless to this practicality, straining against Irina's arms, her desperation growing like a dam set to burst inside. "No!" If he's gone, then what will she do? Where will she go? How can she go on? "No!" she is wild with panic and grief, scratching at the cold hard skin of Irina's arms, heedless of how her nails are breaking against the unyielding flesh. "Let me go!"

An abrupt wave of calm slams into her so hard that she sags as if struck in Irina's restraining embrace, her protests dying to a desperate whisper. "Please…" Another wave of calm washes over her, all consuming, her eyes sinking shut as she tries to fight the artificial emotion. "Please…don't…" But it is no use, the world sinking away as her vision goes dark.

She comes to stretched out on one of the leather sofas, the sky still light beyond the tree tops outside. Disoriented, she wonders at the terrible dream creeping at the edges of her consciousness, lifting a hand to her head, groggy.

But it was not a dream.

Bella scrambles to her feet, breath caught in her lungs, gaze darting to the door before she realizes she must get her wallet and keys first. "Bella," Tanya's voice is hard, yanking her from her frantic planning, from the desperate clamor of her thoughts. She spins to face the chair from which the voice emerged, braced to argue. "I'm not going to try to stop you," Tanya continues before Bella can speak. Her heart-shaped face is shadowed, sorrow apparent in her golden eyes.

Bella shifts course, trying to recollect the last murmurs of Alice's prediction before Jasper had hit her with such a wave of calm, she'd passed out. "The reservation…but when?" Her stare does not waver as she meets Tanya's weary gaze, a flicker of hope fluttering in her breast, unable to bear the thought that she might be too late.

But Tanya is shaking her head, amber eyes sinking shut. "At sea. That was all she could see when I asked her where he was in the next hour, the next day. At sea," she sighs.

Bella has already stumbled to her feet, denying the head rush she feels at how swiftly she'd stood, her pace quickening as she heads towards the corridor. She can hear the soft pad of Tanya's feet upon the floorboards behind her but doesn't slow when the vampire speaks, "I can come with you. Or perhaps Jasper—he could try to calm the tribe if there's still a chance…" her voice falters on the words before she angrily mutters, "Trust that when Edward finally makes a decision, this is the one he makes."

Bella shakes her head as she turns into her room and reaches for her coat, shoving her arms into the sleeves. She is surprised by how even her voice sounds when she speaks. "This is my fault. I can't drag any of you into this. Edward broke the treaty for me. He left because of me. It isn't fair to involve anyone else." She inhales, turning to face Tanya, grim and resolved. "I won't risk anyone else getting hurt."

"But for yourself?" Tanya challenges.

Bella simply nods. After seeing the anguish and fear with which Jasper had reacted to Alice's incapacitating vision, she could never forgive herself if she was at fault for separating them forever.

"You could wait for Carlisle and Esme. They'll be back at dawn."

"And risk being too late to intervene."

"You could be too late now."

Bella swallows, the hope in her breast flickering, struggling. "That's a risk I'm willing to take."

Tanya is shaking her head but reluctant admiration shines in her eyes. "What are you going to do? Physically stop him? How will you get past the wolves? Isn't that the very reason he's approaching from the water? Because he knows they'll detect his approach otherwise?"

Something angry and stubborn hardens in Bella's chest, her brows lowering as she grabs her keys and wallet. "He's doing this because he thinks I don't want him. I have to believe that if he only knew…" But she can't go on, turning away from Tanya and struggling for breath. She refuses to believe she's too late. She turns to the bedroom door but hesitates on the threshold, recalling one last item she needs. Grabbing her largely unused cell from the nightstand, she hurries back to the corridor. "Where's Alice?" she asks over her shoulder.

"In the north wing," Tanya answers as she continues to act as Bella's shadow, following her down the hall. She softly directs the way to the suite where Jasper took Alice after Bella had fainted, a masculine voice murmuring inside. One cold hand on Bella's wrist stops her from knocking and entering; Bella's gaze darts up to Tanya's face, her eyes growing wide at the mixture of sadness and regret there.

"I only wanted to say," Tanya's voice is soft, her gaze falling to where her hand rests on the delicate bones of Bella's wrist. "I'm sorry."

"Tanya—" Bella tries to protest, to tell her it isn't necessary.

But Tanya speaks swiftly, as if knowing this may be the last time she sees the human girl. "I'm sorry not only for how I behaved…but for how I doubted the depth of your feelings." She shakes her head, her voice unbearably sad. "I could see…for all of my accusing you of hero-worship…I could see you saw him as human."

Bella sucks in a breath, too shocked by this insight to remain silent. "But I shouldn't have!" she interrupts, protesting. "If only I'd accepted what he was—and what that meant for us…" She chokes on the final words, by her unintentional use of the past tense.

"But don't see you?" Tanya tilts her head. "Can't you see that he needed that?" The words are a plea, enjoining Bella to understand. Bella is so caught off guard by this reversal of their roles, by the superior vampire asking anything of her, that she finds she can't breathe. "Being with you," Tanya goes on, her voice soft, "seeing himself through your eyes gave him back the humanity he always insisted was such a façade." She shakes her blond head, golden eyes sinking shut. "And the way he saw you—it elevated you above being merely human."

"I—" Bella doesn't know what to say, her skin chilled by Tanya's touch, her heart full with Tanya's insight. "Thank you."

The beautiful vampire simply nods and releases Bella's wrist, turning on her heel and leaving her at the threshold.

Bella doesn't watch her go, a sense of urgency returning as she faces the door and gently knocks upon the heavy wood slats. "Come in," Jasper's voice calls from within and she twists the knob before stepping inside.

The room is all shadows, the curtains closed, and her eyes take a moment to adjust to the weak light. She pauses, trying to gather her thoughts, to muster up the courage to potentially hear that her decision has changed nothing of Alice's vision.

But the questions falter on her lips as she realizes the seer does not appear to have altered much beyond the catatonic state she had fallen into upon learning the fate of her brother; Alice's eyes are closed, her body curled into a ball upon the wrought iron bed. Worry for the fey girl marks Bella's expression as she asks, "Is she alright?"

"She's better," Jasper's voice is grim, his arms a protective ring around her shoulders, his body curved over her. Bella feels no fear at his nearness, unable to believe anything could tempt him from Alice's side.

Alice's eyes flutter open and Bella is relieved to see the amber of her irises…but her gaze is still vague, as if she cannot stop herself from constantly looking to the future, trying to see Edward there, beyond the fire and darkness.

Bella steps further into the room, her voice soft as she speaks. "Alice," she begins, "I'm going back to Washington, to the peninsula…to the reservation."

Though she knows Jasper has no need to breathe, she can't help thinking they're both waiting with baited breath, anticipating Alice's response.

Only nothing happens.

Bella bites back a sob, the denial rising like thunder in her limbs. It can't be too late. It can't.

"Are you sure—" Jasper begins, his gaze rising from Alice's white features to Bella's stricken face.

But she is speaking before he can finish the sentence, the words breathless with anger and stubborn desperation. "I have to try. I can't let him destroy himself for me—for no reason. I can't."

Jasper simply nods, his voice quiet when he responds, "You should let one of the sisters drive with you—at least as far as the border." The concern in his expression, the worry this creature has for her when he had once been the source of so much fear and anxiety for Edward, leaves her unable to swallow.

She nods her head sharply, turning to go back through the door, determined to get on the road immediately. Then, remembering the item she'd pocketed from the nightstand in her room, she turns back, her voice hard and insistent, as if in saying the words, she can will it to happen. "If anything changes—anything—just, please…call me."

Jasper simply nods, lips thin, before his golden gaze turns back to Alice.

Her course decided, Bella rushes down the corridors of the lodge, pushing away the thought that this might be the last time she crosses these knotted pine floors, that she will have no reason to return if Edward is no longer in the world. She slams through the front door, lungs burning for air, her hand a fist around her keys. She is nearly panting as she stutters down the steps, unsurprised to find Irina in the passenger seat of the light blue truck.

"I thought you might want the distraction of driving for a bit," the blonde quietly states, voice even, golden eyes fixed upon the dirt road beyond the windshield.

Bella simply nods, climbing into the driver's seat and gunning the engine into life.

But the drive is no distraction; it is torture. Once they reach the highway and she no longer has the pitted, dusty forest service road to navigate, her mind becomes an echo chamber of self-recriminations and regret. If only she hadn't left. If only she had acknowledged how she felt for him sooner. If only she'd had the insight to see Edward was full of the same fears as her. If only…if only…if only…

The fear that she is already too late, that what Alice had seen has already come to pass, is like a black pit into which she feels herself constantly sliding, her hope like a frail branch that she clings to with both hands. Thankfully, Irina doesn't fill the silence with banal chatter or false platitudes that everything will turn out. Nor does she comment on how frequently Bella checks the cell phone in her jacket pocket, desperate for a call from Alice or even Jacob, with whom she's left several cryptic messages in the hope that she might find an ally in him. But the phone does not ring and Bella finally stops checking it, no longer able to bear the spike of disappointment at seeing she has no missed calls.

It is only after the sky has darkened to the deepest black that the vampire speaks, the words gently insistent. "You should try to rest. I'll drive."

Instinctive protests rise to Bella's lips, entirely uncertain she could bring herself to close her eyes long enough to sleep. Her nerves are as taut as a bow, blood pumping through her veins as though she's been running miles rather than trapped behind the wheel of the truck. Yet…her lids have been fluttering for the past hour, struggling to stay open.

"I will survive an accident, Bella, but you may not."

Inhaling, Bella finally nods before pulling over, signaling out of habit though no other cars have passed them for hours. She hurries around to the opposite side of the truck after yanking on the parking brake, desperate to get back on the road, uncertain whether another minute lost is the minute she might need to beat Edward to the shores of the reservation. Irina does not hesitate as she returns to the highway, somehow managing to release the parking brake, adjust the mirrors and snap on her seatbelt in a matter of seconds. Regardless, Bella's fingers twitch with the desire to be behind the wheel, eyes wide as she stares up at the endless black of the sky, hungry for any sense that she can control the outcome of this desperate trip.

But perhaps she can close her eyes for a moment, the dark of her lids so similar to the black of the sky, a brief break from the desperate loop of her thoughts…

Sky transitions to water, clear and pristine and shot through with the brightest blue. Her gaze lifts, burned by the chlorine in the pool, filled with tears that she will later be grateful do not show against her damp cheeks. She had longed for an invitation to one of the many pool parties thrown by the kids at school, a common occurrence in the heat of Arizona. She suspected Jessica had invited her out of pity but had hoped against all hope that she was wrong. Only now, after having been shoved in at the deep end, a sharp, malicious laugh echoing in her ears before the rush of water muted everything, did she know for certain.

Arms suddenly locked around her waist, dragging her to the surface, an angry voice barking in her ear as she sucked in a desperate lung full of air, "What are you doing here if you can't swim?!"

Bella starts awake and is filled with a sudden sense of relief as she registers the faint scent of lavender and the sensation of cool skin beneath thin fabric under her cheek.

A gentle voice pulls her back to reality. "You were dreaming."

Bella rears away from Irina's shoulder, sucking in a breath with the realization that she is not with Edward—that she has not somehow returned to the time she had spent driving these same roads with him, contrarily happy despite the fact they were fleeing the Quileutes, the future still full of hope and promise. Sudden tears prick her eyes and she drags her hands over her face, barely able to stand the abrupt return to this reality.

She does not fall asleep again, her eyes burning and watchful as the sun slowly rises over the conifer forests crowding the highway.

The hours pass, torturously slow and yet all too fast, her cell phone stubbornly silent. Irina does not protest when Bella asks to take the wheel again, simply hopping out of the truck whenever they stop for gas to buy coffee and some sort of sustenance, her features impassive when Bella downs the black liquid and ignores the food.

Day has faded to night again when Irina breaks the silence, her voice somber. "This is where I take my leave."

Bella starts, unaware she'd sunk into a sort of fugue state, numb and silent but for an inner voice urging her on, determined to find Edward, certain she will get there in time, entirely unable to contemplate any other outcome.

Her gaze rises to the signs marching along the roadside, blinking with surprise as she sees they're nearly to the border. She is only hours from the reservation, hours from Edward.

She glances to Irina, a frown passing over her brow. "But how will you get back to Alaska?"

Irina shrugs, her lips quirking. "I will run. Or perhaps hitchhike. No matter." Bella nods as she slowly pulls over to the shoulder, trying to shake off her lethargy, to form the words of thanks for Irina's assistance in driving and blessfully taciturn company.

But Irina speaks first, her amber eyes on her hands, her words quiet and sincere. "You are in our hearts, Bella."

Then she is gone, slipping through the passenger door, her figure a blur of white and gold in the darkness of night, darting into the woods near the road. Though she is uncertain Irina can hear her, Bella can't help choking, "Thank you." It is several minutes before she is able to turn the wheel back to the road, her vision blurred with tears.

Once she crosses the border, the cacophony of doubts and fears begin anew, red-rimmed eyes darting over the road as she desperately seeks some solution. For what will she say when she reaches the reservation? In warning the Quileutes of Edward's imminent arrival, might she only put him at further risk? What if he's already there? What could she possibly say to prevent the Quileutes from attacking him? And what if they see her as equally at fault for Edward's presence on their land? Will they attack her? And will she care if they do?

Her mind reels through these questions and fears, her lids fluttering with the desperate physical need to sleep though she knows there is no possible way she could rest. Frantically, she hangs on to hope—that Jacob might have gotten her messages, that she'll reach Edward before he reaches the Quileutes, that the tribe will see reason and let them go…

Rays of light have just begun to creep over the horizon when the wheels of the truck find the highway to Forks, and the Quileute reservation beyond. Her hand inches into the pocket of her jacket and doesn't leave, fingers clenched around the cell phone there, unable to believe Alice would fail to call if her visions had altered…yet, if there was any chance Bella would reach Edward in time, wouldn't the seer have known?

"It can't be," Bella whispers, her hand forming a fist around the phone. "I can't believe it. I won't." She simply can't be too late. She couldn't live with herself if Edward—but no, she won't allow herself to think of such a thing. It can't be possible.

The tree tops have become distinct and visible in the early morning light when her truck ghosts over the border of tribal lands, her breath caught in her lungs, waiting, watching, heart pounding in her chest.

But the narrow, winding lanes of the reservation are quiet at this hour. There are no women and children fleeing in one direction as the Quileute men head in another, ready to battle the vampire threat. There are no sirens sounding, no cars squealing from driveways, no angry barks and howls as she had heard through the night of her captivity in the Clearwater house.

There is only silence and wisps of fog trailing around the towering trees, little trailers and ramshackle houses tucked beneath their branches. Bella's hands, clenched around the steering wheel and fisted in her pocket, shake with weariness and anticipation as she wheels towards the beach, hope blooming anew in her breast.

Perhaps Alice did not see anything because of the wolves, her vision always blurred and uncertain where the Quileutes were concerned. Perhaps Edward is still at sea, waiting for the tribe to wake and rise. As she turns towards the ocean, the gray waves calm and steady, the pulse of the tide drowning out the hum of her engine, she can't help turning her gaze from the road to the water, searching for a distant, bobbing face.

But as she draws closer to the beach, her brow furrows…for it is not the beach she knows, the pale bones of driftwood scattered at even angles upon the shore, deposited by the ceaseless tide. Her heart stutters in her chest before her skin breaks out in a cold sweat upon seeing the giant black mark that scars the ground, evidence of a huge pyre.

Adrenaline surges through her limbs, uncaring that the engine of her truck is still running as she wrenches on the parking brake and staggers from the cab. Her feet slip and slide on the sandy gravel path that leads down to the beach, disbelieving even as she draws near, unwilling to concede she could be too late.

"Edward," she whispers, her heart crashing against her ribs, her hands trembling as she approaches the blackened circle scarring the beach, the faint scent of burnt wood mixing with the salt sea on the damp air. She stops only when she steps on something unexpectedly soft, dragging her gaze from the circle of ashes and charred wood ahead. Her lips part on a soundless gasp as she sees the torn fragments of a shirt beneath her foot.

The cell phone still clenched in her hand clatters to the rocks at her feet. "No." The word is a vehement whisper, her eyes briefly sinking shut. It can't be. But as her gaze darts around the beach she sees what she had not noticed in her intent focus on the distinguished pyre—there are torn clothes everywhere, evidence of wolves phasing where they stood. "No," she softly cries, shaking her head as she closes her eyes, unwilling to believe, unable to believe he could be gone.

"What are you doing here?"

Bella spins, her mind dully registering the familiarity of the voice but unable to place who is speaking until she sees Leah Clearwater before her. The dark-haired girl's stiffly upright figure is crossing the rocky beach, hands fists at her sides, her tanned face a mask of fury and outrage.

"Leah," Bella begins, desperate for answers, eager to learn that her eyes have misled her, that Edward is somehow unhurt.

"What are you doing here?" Leah cuts in, her words like venom. "How dare you show your face here?"

"I—" Delirious with lack of sleep, barely able to believe these circumstances are real, Bella fumbles for the words that will help return her hopes.

"Did you know he was coming?" Leah demands, uncaring of Bella's response. Her lips tighten over her teeth, as if she is physically restraining herself from lashing out. "Not that it matters," she sneers. "He didn't even fight."

Leah doesn't register Bella's changed demeanor at these words, too caught up in her own anger to notice or care; she doesn't see that Bella has physically sagged, hands limp at her sides, all of the light dying from her gaze. "And you dare to show your face here." Her glossy head tilts back before a gob of spittle erupts past her lips, landing at Bella's feet. "Go! You're not welcome here."

Bella doesn't know how her trembling legs manage to find their way back up the beach, nearly falling to her knees on the steep path leading to the gravel lot above the shore. Her mind is in a complete fog as she slams into the truck and turns the wheel, the tires smoking as she peels out of the lot. Her eyes are blank as her thoughts whirl with words said and unsaid, an echo chamber reverberating with moments from the past, entirely unable to bear the present.

"Why do you think you're here?"

"I was told to come."

She can see him across the desk from her even now, as distinct as if it had only occurred yesterday, eyes black and inscrutable, lips quirking as he ably ducked and dodged her questions. She can feel those same lips upon her own, cool and sweet, her fingers lifting from the steering wheel to ghost over her mouth.

"It's a well kept secret." Her voice had been wry, trying to return the conversation to levity, annoyed at her inability to control her emotions around him.

"That Bella Swan has feelings?" Edward's response had knocked the breath from her lungs, her gaze stunned and unseeing as he allowed the remaining minutes of their visit to tick past. She thinks now how he had been the only one to see those feelings, to pierce past the reserve and distance, to know her.

"Our time is nearly up."

And just as when she'd come across the bunch of forget-me-nots, bruised against the glass of her wind shield, she is murmuring the same word over and over, unable to believe the truth. "No, no, no, no. No!"

Only now the denial transforms into a sob, her throat raw as she screams the word aloud. "No!"

The brakes of the truck squeal as she slams her foot down, panting for air, eyes wild and blind. She cannot care that she is on a winding two lane road, cannot be grateful there are no other cars around, cannot register anything other than denial and pain as the truth begins to take hold.

"No! No! No…" The final word is a wail as she pounds her fists against the steering wheel of the truck, beating the leather clad circle over and over until her hands are red and swollen. He can't be gone! He can't be. What will she do? Where will she go? How will she ever go on knowing he's gone? And it's all her fault…

"No, no, no, no, no," the word is a litany, her lips barely moving as her eyes sink shut, tears spilling past her lids, bruised hands clenching into fists in her lap. "Edward, please!" She is panting for breath, her gaze rising to the roof of the truck, blind with tears. "Oh, please God, no…"

Bella flings herself from the car, stumbling in her haste, her gaze clearing long enough to see she is opposite the cliffs from which she'd seen the Quileutes diving last summer, tanned bodies slicing through the air to rough waters below. She doesn't know how her feet find their way across the road and over the tangle of brush and grass to the cliff edge, her vision blurring in and out of focus, the beat of her heart echoing in her ears, cheeks damp with tears.

"Oh, Edward," she whispers.

The tide is out, unlike the day she had seen Jake and Embry and Paul leaping from this precipice, the foam and froth of the sea below failing to conceal jagged rocks just beneath the surface.

Bella closes her eyes, her breath coming easier, her pulse slowing.

It is, on the whole, a merciful arrangement. We are not condemned to sustained flights of being, but are constantly refreshed by little holidays from ourselves. We are intermittent creatures, always falling to little ends and rising to little new beginnings.

But there is no new beginning for her. Edward had been the only one.

It is barely a decision, simply reacting, trying to avert what she cannot bear to happen. Her bruised hands shake as she lifts them, remembering how she had braced herself against the sash of Leah's bedroom window. She opens her eyes but does not look down to the churning sea below, gaze lifting to the endless gray of the sky.

"Do you trust me?"

Bella steps forward, falling into the embracing sky.